> > What are your thoughts about a list that solicits contributions in
> > order to pay graduate students to help run the list?
>
> Well, there is work involved and somewhere, somehow somebody is
> paying for this work to get done.  Perhaps your employer considers
> this part of your job and it gets paid for that way.  Perhaps it is
> done on a volunteer basis outside of work hours.  Not everyone wants
> to volunteer their time this way.
 
This is the kind of thing that makes me have mixed feelings about it.
I treat listowning, as well as most list reading, as a recreational
activity -- something I do when other people are doing things like
watching tv.  Not everybody thinks that way, however.  I also would
never consider running a moderated list since I personally dislike that
style (spurts of delayed, clumped mail).  But not everybody thinks that
way either.  The list I'm talking about is very well respected and very
good (even though I delete most of it unread, as I do with all moderated
lists).  Its survival probably depends on the paid efforts of the student
workers.  I guess what bothers me is that we've been spoiled by all these
free lists everywhere.  The next step after soliciting contributions may be
paid subscriptions.  People pay to receive print journals, so why not pay
to receive e-mail lists?  As I said in the beginning, I'm not sure what
I think about it or exactly why I have these niggling doubts, even though
I think about it every time the call for contributions arrives.  So far,
I haven't contributed.  Maybe that's just the selfish thought of why send
my money to help run another list when I could use it to pay somebody to
do my daily maintenance of gopher, ftp, and www files.  But I don't think
that's really it.  I don't mind taking care of these files.  There are
other fuzzy doubts floating through my head -- which is why I asked your
opinions on it.
   --Natalie ([log in to unmask])